


the spirits are ruthless with the paths they choose

by helsinkibaby



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-01
Updated: 2012-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-11 05:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/475018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On October 6th 2009, everyone on the planet blacked out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. In that time, people got a glimpse of their future, if they had one. Kensi has a different vision from the rest of the team and when something terrible happens, she wonders if it will ever come to pass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the spirits are ruthless with the paths they choose

__

_I wonder where you are and how you feel  
Sometimes I walk by and I look up to your balcony  
Just to make sure that you were real  
Just to make sure that I can still feel you  
When I see you again,  
As I always do  
It appears to me that  
Destiny rules  
And the spirits are ruthless with the paths they choose...  
Destiny Rules by Fleetwood Mac._

*

She is in a bedroom that is not her own, wearing a bathrobe that is not her own and nothing else. The bathrobe is long, almost trailing down to her ankles, and it is well worn, soft and wonderfully warm. Her hair is damp, falling in ringlets around her face and she pulls it over her shoulder, rubs a towel over the ends then tosses it on the floor. She considers brushing her hair properly before rejecting the idea and simply running her fingers through the worst of the tangles - he likes her hair messy, likes how he’s often the one who makes it that way, and that thought makes her smile to herself. She makes a token effort to straighten the covers, knowing that it’s something akin to rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic since they’ll no doubt be messing them up again in a little while. She has to react quickly to stop herself knocking a book off the bedside locker, a well thumbed copy of Ulysses with a tear on the cover and that’s when she gives it up as a bad job, turns to go downstairs instead.

She catches sight of herself in the mirror then, sees the smile on her face and it stops her in her tracks, gives her pause. She can’t remember the last time she saw herself with that contented smile on her face, that peaceful feeling that means she doesn’t want to do anything else, be anywhere else but just where she is. It’s been a long, long time, that’s for sure and while once a second date would make her queasy, would be unthinkable, it’s not anymore.

She feels happy.

She feels loved.

She feels hungry, she realises, as a smell rises up from the kitchen downstairs. The irresistible aroma of pancakes is wafting through the apartment and her stomach growls in response. Today has been a very long day and it’s not like they took things easy when they got home either. That thought makes her grin too as she thinks of what they might do when they finish those pancakes and have some more energy, and there’s a definite spring in her step as she heads for the door, makes for the stairs.

“Those pancakes smell awesome,” she calls, reaching the top of the stairs. “You’d better have left some for me!”

She expects to hear him call back with some witty retort or at least a laugh, but suddenly the world spins around her...

*

When Kensi woke up, she was lying on her side and she felt like she’d been hit by a Mack truck. Her ears were ringing, head pounding as if she’d caught it on something as she fell, and the fact that what seemed like a million car alarms were going off outside didn’t help matters, nor did the fact that every alarm they had at NCIS was shrieking too. Wincing, not sure what had happened, she pulled herself up into a sitting position, bracing her hands on the floor when the world lurched sickeningly around her. She had to take a few deep breaths to quell the nausea and she was just about to pull herself up when she heard someone calling her name.  
  
“Kensi, you ok?” Sam’s voice was more than concerned; he sounded as panicked as she’d ever heard him and when his strong arms around went around her, helping her to her feet and holding her until he was sure she was steady, it only took a cursory glance around to see why.  
  
She’d worked at OSP for a long time but she’d never seen the place looking like this.  
  
Many of her co-workers were, like her, in various stages of struggling to their feet. Those who had already achieved such lofty ambitions were looking around them, shell-shocked, jaws agape. Some were bleeding, some holding obviously injured arms or ribs. Paperwork was scattered all over the floor where people had dropped files as they fell but rather than pick things up, people seemed to be migrating towards the windows and doors, towards those damn alarms that just wouldn’t stop shrieking.  
  
“What happened?” she asked. “An earthquake?” It seemed to be the most likely reason but Sam shook his head, lips pressed together in a thin line.  
  
“That was no earthquake,” he declared. Releasing his hold on her, he headed for the nearest window, and Callen met him halfway.  
  
“It’s not just us, man,” he said, and while Kensi could understand the words, she didn’t understand the meaning. “It’s outside too.”  
  
She was about to ask when a half-hearted whistle from upstairs had them all turning reflexively. It was Eric, as usual, but this time the whistle’s volume, or lack thereof, could be easily explained by the gash on his forehead and the blood streaking his temple. Either of those could also explain why his face was absolutely ashen but Kensi knew, by some terrible instinct, that neither was the reason.  
  
“You guys need to get up here,” was all Eric said but almost before he’d finished speaking, Sam and Callen were heading for the stairs, bounding up two at a time. Still wobbly on her feet, Kensi took her time, gripped the banister tightly and hoped like hell that she’d be able to stay upright long enough to get to Ops where there would likely be a chair that she could surreptitiously sink into.  
  
Then she got into Ops and all thoughts of sitting down went right out of her head - falling down, however, became distinctly more likely.  
  
Every screen showed a different location but a similar picture.  
  
Car pile ups.  
  
People wandering, dazed.  
  
Aeroplanes on the ground, houses flattened around them, flames spreading quickly.  
  
Everywhere, confusion.  
  
When she processed that, she realised that Eric was halfway through an explanation, something about backups and protocols and redundancies, technobabble that she could only half follow. “English, Eric,” Sam demanded and Eric turned to him, face serious.  
  
“From what I can work out, we... that is, everyone here, blacked out for two minutes and seventeen seconds. And it wasn’t just everyone here, or everyone in Los Angeles, or everyone in America.” He paused, as if waiting for the implications to sink in. “It was everyone on the planet.”  
  
Kensi had often heard the phrase “deafening silence”, had even used it herself, but until that moment, she hadn’t understood it properly.  
  
“That’s... not... possible.” Nate’s voice, somehow not sounding like Nate’s voice, had Kensi’s head whipping around, a move she immediately regretted as she had to grab the nearest table to steady herself.  
  
No-one noticed though, not the way Eric was pressing buttons. “New York. San Francisco. Toronto. London. Paris. Dubai. Sydney.” He named city after city and each time he did so, he jabbed a button, changing the image on the main screen. Sure enough, each city he chose had the same type of picture. “It may not be possible,” Eric concluded. “But it happened.”  
  
“And we need to start checking chatter to see if we can find out anything about why.” The unshakable Hetty appeared at the door, looking very shaken indeed, and while everyone was well aware that this may not be their jurisdiction, until they received official word of that, they were going to do their bit.  
  
“Wait.” Callen rubbed his forehead, the other hand on his hip. “During the blackout... did anyone else...”  
  
“Have a dream?” Sam filled in when Callen paused, and even though Kensi had teased them more times than she could remember about being an old married couple finishing one another’s sentences, when Callen nodded and said, “Yeah,” a shiver ran up her spine.  
  
“I was in a bar,” said Callen. “Singing karaoke with you.”  
  
He was pointing at Sam, and they both said at the same time, “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.”  
  
Kensi would have said Eric couldn’t get any paler, yet he did. “I was looking at the two of you. You were terrible. And I was sitting with...” He turned, pointing towards Hetty, who had one finger pointing between Sam and Callen, the other arm crossed over her chest, her thinking pose.  
  
“Me,” she said. “ And I believe I had my fingers in my ears to shut out the unbearable caterwauling that made even these damn alarms sound appealing.”  
  
“Nate?” Callen was staring at the psychologist. “Did you...”  
  
Nate hesitated for only a moment before nodding slowly. “I was at a bar... buying drinks. There was a scary looking red-head standing beside me who was trying to decide between singing Shania or Rihanna... and when I looked around, I could see you two on the stage.”  
  
By now, Kensi’s stomach was churning and it had nothing to do with the fall she’d taken. “Kensi? What about you?”  
  
She met Sam’s gaze, shook her head slowly. “I wasn’t there,” she said quietly. “I was somewhere else...” Everyone was looking at her and she could feel her cheeks growing warm. “Someone’s bedroom. He was downstairs... I could smell pancakes...” She clamped her mouth shut, cheeks flaming, when she realised that everyone was staring at her, faces wearing expressions that ran the gamut from shocked to amused.  
  
“Beats the hell out of listening to those two singing.” Somehow, the fact that Eric was the first one to recover his sense of humour didn’t surprise her, the quip cutting through her embarrassment, allowing her to smile.  
  
“Shut up.” But Sam said the words with a smile on his face, turning to the one person who hadn’t yet spoken, the one who was sitting quietly in the corner. “Dom? What about you?”  
  
There was a long silence, and something about the look in Dom’s eyes made Kensi’s smile disappear, made her stomach sink.  
  
“I didn’t see anything.”  
  
>*<*>*<  
  
Dom’s announcement on October 6th caused an uncomfortable silence to fall over Ops, with Eric characteristically being the first to recover, stating that it didn’t mean anything - maybe Dom was dreaming he was asleep.  
  
As the days went by however, and October edged towards November, more and more details emerged that made that silence become positively eerie.  
  
Eric had been right - everyone on the planet had blacked out at the same time, for the same amount of time. No-one knew why, and the FBI had set up a task force to investigate. Details of what they found were sketchy, with not even inter-agency co-operation breaching the walls, but that barely mattered, because there was plenty of anecdotal evidence to fall back on.  
  
The Mosaic website, where people posted details of their Flashforwards, was required reading, with people finding others who had shared the same vision that they had. There were even people who posted about being in the same downtown bar and listening to two guys singing bad country music karaoke. Kensi would never admit it to anyone, but she spent more than a couple of evenings skimming the posts, wondering would one ever appear where someone was in their home cooking pancakes. Every time though, she came up empty.  
  
The most ominous thing of all was that more and more people began emerging who hadn’t seen anything.  
  
One by one, those people started dying.  
  
No-one mentioned that to Dom, nor did Dom talk to anyone about it. But it was always there, the proverbial elephant in the room, every time the word “Flashforward” was used.  
  
>*<*>*<  
  
As November dawned, something happened that changed everything.  
  
An FBI agent named Al Gough, an agent who was working on the very task force that was investigating the Flashforwards, took his own life by leaping from the roof of the building where he worked.  
  
Not, insiders whispered, that that was unusual; he was far from the first FBI agent to take his own life if the pressure of the job got too much. No, what was unusual was the fact that Al Gough had had a Flashforward, one that had revealed that he would, sometime in the next six or seven months, be involved in a car crash that would take the life of a young mother named  Celia Jones. Unable to live with the possibility that he would be responsible for the death of an innocent, leaving young boys sent to foster care, he had taken an impossible decision that would ensure that would never happen.  
  
The FBI might well have tried to hush it all up, were it not for the fact that Agent Gough had written to the woman, letting her know that despite the fact she hadn’t had a Flashforward, she nonetheless now had a future. She was on every news broadcast all over the world that day, reading the letter, letting people know it was possible to change the future.  
  
They didn’t mention that around Dom either, but it was impossible not to notice that hope in his eyes as he watched, devouring every detail of the letter.  
  
>*<*>*<  
  
November moved, as it always does, into December and much to Kensi’s surprise, the world seemed to be going on as normal, knowledge of the Flashforwards moving into the background noise of everyone’s world, something that just had to be lived with. Cases came and went, none involving bikinis, thank goodness, and she and Dom were building a nice partnership. It made her smile to see how seriously he took everything, how he hero-worshipped Sam, would have done anything the older man said. They were getting along well, they were clearing their cases, and things were fine.  
  
But December always did have a way of throwing her into a tailspin.  
  
For the last five years, she hadn’t really felt the joy of Christmas, which she supposed was normal. After all, when you wake up on Christmas morning to find that your world has fallen to pieces around you, you’re not really going to look forward to marking the anniversary. Still, she tried her best not to let it show, bought presents, put up a tree, and drank eggnog.  
  
Spent December 25th on her own in her apartment with her memories, the biggest tub of ice cream she could find and a DVD of _Titanic_.  
  
She was almost looking forward to the same thing this year, then she drove her bike into Hastings King’s auto shop and began talking to a pissed off marine, trying to earn his trust so that he would tell her where she might find Tariq Burad Al-Jabiri.  
  
She knew Sam and Callen were listening, couldn’t believe the words as they fell out of her mouth.  
  
“I was even engaged to a jarhead once.”  
  
“He was killed in Fallujah.”  
  
It has been a very, very long time since she said anything like that to anyone, and she blamed it entirely on the time of year.  
  
But when Tariq came down the stairs and Sam and Callen came in to take him back to the Boat House, when King stared at her and asked her how her father feels about his little girl becoming a professional liar, she felt sick to her stomach, a sensation that she couldn’t shake easily.  
  
Later, sitting back at her desk, Hetty noticed her subdued demeanour, came over to talk to her. She even gave her a cup of tea, which is how Kensi knew that she must look really bad. She knew that Hetty must know about Jack, but she didn’t mention him so Kensi didn’t either, just spoke about dealing with the danger of undercover work better than the deception. Hetty’s words were as soothing as the cup of tea she handed Kensi, telling her that the deception she practises is a necessary evil. "You need to embrace it, not fear it. I'm sure your father would agree."  
  
Kensi was pretty sure he would too, but Dom interrupted them before she could tell Hetty that the reason she was so uncomfortable just then wasn’t because she perpetrated a deception - rather, it was because she hadn’t.  
  
For a time, she thought she’d got away with it, right until she was on her way out of Ops and found Nate sitting on an alcove window ledge, arms crossed, legs stretched out for miles, crossed at the ankles. She knew his “I need to talk to you” face when she saw it and she smiled to herself, going up to him, crossing her own arms as she leaned against the wall.  
  
“Is this an intervention?” she asked and in true Nate style, he simply lifted one eyebrow, staying silent for a long moment.  
  
“Sam told me what you said in the auto shop today...about being engaged to a Marine who was killed in the line,” he said. “He asked me if it was true.”  
  
Kensi is instantly suspicious. “And you said?”  
  
“That I didn’t know.” It was the truth, she knew because nothing about Jack would be in her file, and she also knew the next words that would come out of his mouth. He didn’t disappoint her. “Is there anything you need to talk about?”  
  
Kensi sighed, moving to sit down beside him. This wasn’t a topic she liked discussing but he was Nate. As well as being their operational psychologist, the only one she’d ever met who didn’t mind her debriefings taking place over chilli dogs or pizza and beer, he was her friend, one of the very few people she could talk to easily, one of the few people that she trusted.  
  
If she was ever going to tell anyone at NCIS, it would be him.  
  
“Five years ago,” she said, speaking slowly, stomach churning at the memory, “I was engaged. To a Marine. His name was Jack and I thought he hung the moon and the stars. He was sweet, he was thoughtful, he was funny... he treated me like I was the greatest thing he’d ever seen in his life.”  
  
“Sounds like a nice guy.”  
  
“He was. Then he got stationed in Fallujah, charged with keeping curfew.”  
  
Nate’s eyes grew dark, concerned. “Intense.”  
  
“Constantly on edge. Danger around every corner. Shootouts every night.” Kensi ticked them all off on her fingers. “I used to wonder how he could live with what he saw there. Then he came home and I found out. He couldn’t.” Nate frowned, eyes darting backwards and forwards as if trying to figure out what she meant. “He didn’t... I mean...” She sighed, shaking her head. “He came home. But he was different. On edge. Short tempered. He didn’t smile as much... and he would say things... terrible things.” She bit her lip, recalling some of them. “He was diagnosed with PTSD and I did everything, everything I could to bring him back. I listened, I learned about his meds, I read so many damn self-help books... I tried everything I could to get through to him. And I really thought I was getting somewhere...then I woke up on Christmas morning and he was gone. No note, nothing. Just cleaned out of my life like he’d never been there. The only thing he left was the ring on my finger.”  
  
Tears stung her throat, her eyes, and somehow looking at Nate, all silent concern, made her feel even more like breaking down. Psychologist or not though, they were at work, where anyone could come across her and doing anything like that - certainly fulfilling the come-from-nowhere urge to throw herself into his arms would, she told herself, be damn unprofessional.  
  
“I didn’t lie today,” she told him when she could trust herself to speak. “Jack... my Jack, he died over there. The man who came back... he was someone different. Someone who couldn’t love me. That’s what I told myself to help me to move on... and sometimes, it even worked.”  
  
“Have you ever heard from him?”  
  
She shook her head. “No. Which makes it easier. And harder.” She chuckled softly as she heard the words. “That makes no sense.”  
  
“Perfect sense,” Nate disagreed, a small smile hovering around his lips that made Kensi feel instantly reassured.  
  
“I take it I’m not being benched then?” she asked, returning his smile with one of her own.  
  
“Not this week,” he replied. “But you do know I’m here if you need to talk. I promise not to go all psychologist on you.”  
  
She nodded, stood up, ready to go back to work. “Thanks, Nate.”  
  
“Anytime.”  
  
Walking towards the stairs she could feel his eyes on her the whole way, but she told herself she was just imagining it.  
  
>*<*>*<  
  


It was a gloomy morning at the end of January, unusual for Los Angeles. Or maybe the weather itself wasn’t gloomy, it was just that it was the morning after the night before and it felt like a herd of elephants was trampling through Kensi’s brain. Neither aspirin nor coffee had done anything to alleviate the symptoms of a killer hangover, though she was trying to convince herself that her headache had a lot less to do with alcohol than the effects of listening to her co-workers’ attempts at karaoke. It had been Dom's first team night out - she'd insisted on picking him up, had even promised that she wouldn't take too long to get ready, the way he always complained that she did. The rookie had done a surprisingly passable version of Ben E King’s _Stand by Me_ , thought it hadn't held a candle to Hetty's version of _Wanted Dead or Alive._ It had been Sam and Callen, the former doing version of _My Funny Valentine_ , the latter doing both parts of _To All The Girls I've Loved Before_ , that had left Kensi unsure of whether to laugh, cry, or simply order another beer. That the last two choices had tied for a win was obvious from her headache this morning, and to have to sit through one of Hetty's Safety in the Workplace seminars was simply adding insult to injury. Nor did it make her feel one bit better that everyone on the team seemed to be suffering a similar fate to her, especially Dom. The memory of Sam all but force-feeding the younger agent beer, vowing that he was going to toughen him up, made her smile, though when she noticed Dom was looking even more green around the gills than she felt, she took pity on him and surreptitiously passed him some aspirin.  
  
If this was what the team had seen in their Flashforwards, then PancakeGuy was looking better and better.  
  
Still, hangover and bad karaoke aside, she had enjoyed her night but she couldn’t help but feel something was missing.  
  
Someone.  
  
Nate.  
  
Which was unusual, because for all his quietness, Nate never missed a night out. He had joked to her once, over one of their chilli dog debriefs, that the team plus alcohol was one of the most interesting psychological experiments one could ever come across. Sure, he hadn’t been that keen on the idea of karaoke - and she couldn’t quite believe that he too had suggested that cowboy bar on Sunset, just like she couldn’t believe she’d never run into him there - but she’d never thought he wouldn’t show up.  
  
She blamed the fact that she was hung-over and still preoccupied with Nate’s absence the previous night to notice that he wasn’t in their little circle that morning. In fact it was Callen who first mentioned that Nate hadn't arrived in yet, and that in another thirty seconds he would be officially late.  
  
Looking back, Kensi would note that that was the moment that alarm bells rang in the back of her mind, because while it was one thing to miss a night out, Nate was punctual to a fault, and there was no way that he would be late for a seminar. Especially not when Hetty was the one giving the seminar. Trying to ignore the twist in her stomach, act as casual as possible, she grabbed her cell, called him, and left a message of forced cheer on his voicemail.  
  
Wondering why she was the only one who appeared concerned, she took her seat at her, until one cell phone went off after the other and Nate's picture flashed up with an Agent in Distress message beside it.  
  
That, and a quick sprint to Ops, was when all hell broke loose.  
  
In a flash, Eric was pulling up all the telemetry he could, deciding that Nate’s cell phone was turned off, battery out, because it wasn’t emitting any signal at all. As he was speaking, Kensi was punching Nate’s home phone number into her cell phone, her stomach twisting when there was no answer. That twist became more pronounced when she heard Eric saying that GPS put Nate’s car beside his apartment, more pronounced still when she, Sam, Callen and Dom arrived there to see police cars with blue lights flashing, crime scene tape with Nate’s car on the other side. Both front doors were open, the windshield was shot out and blood was all over the front seat. Too much blood, Kensi knew at once, for anyone to lose and still survive. Sam instantly began barking orders, contacted Eric and told him to check traffic cameras, Callen and Dom looking around the alley for any clues. It fell to Kensi to check the inside of the car, trying her best to ignore the coppery smell of blood in the air, trying to forget that it could well be Nate’s blood. Pushing that thought out of her mind, she got down on her knees, finding the onboard security camera, a thrill of delight chasing through her when she realised that it was still there and that it had been turned on. Her heart sank when she pulled it out and inspected it, seeing at once that a bullet had gone through the hard drive, instinctively knowing that retrieving data from that would be difficult, if not impossible. She tried her best to push it away, but she couldn’t stop her mind from going there, any more than she could stop the tremor of her hands.  
  
Somehow, mercifully, years of training and experience kicked in and she managed to do her job, process the scene, get all the evidence she possibly could, literally leaving no stone unturned. She might usually have entrusted Dom with the task of taking the onboard computer to Ty, feeling it was the perfect scut job for a rookie. This time, however, she did it herself – after all, this was Nate, her friend, and she wanted to do all she could to make sure he came back to them.  It was a move she regretted when Ty looked at the remnants of the console, telling her impassively that getting a bullet through the hard drive platter is like getting hit in the heart.  
  
When she told him that the hard drive came from Nate’s car, Ty was instantly serious, shaking his head. “He was a good guy, for a shrink and all,” he pronounced, as if they weren’t going to find him, as if he was already dead and Kensi wanted to tell him not to talk like that, that they would find Nate, that it was all going to work out, but the words died in her throat.  
  
That wasn’t a problem that Hetty seemed to have though, because when Kensi walked into Ops, the older woman was barking orders left and right. Eric was ordered to go through security camera footage frame by frame (as if he hadn’t already, he was heard to mutter.) Sam and G were sent to check with other agencies to investigate if there had been any other abductions. Dom and Kensi, meanwhile, got the job that she really didn’t want - the job of going to Nate’s apartment to look for clues.  
  
Usually she and Dom would banter for the entire car journey, but today was different, each lost in their own thoughts. “It’s just weird, you know?” Dom broke the silence between them as they walked to Nate’s apartment, voicing Kensi’s own thoughts.

 

“Our first time at Nate’s place being to investigate his disappearance? I’d say that’s weird.” Kensi’s voice was tight, her jaw clenched, hand freezing. This wasn’t supposed to happen, not to Nate. He was their Operational Psychologist for crying out loud, he only went out in the field once in a blue moon. Who in the world would target him? Any why?  
  
“Not that.” Dom shook his head, shooting Kensi a quick look out of the corner of his eye. “I was just thinking... I mean, I’m the one who didn’t have a Flashforward... you’d think if this was going to happen to anyone...”  
  
“He’s not dead.” Kensi cut across the younger agent quickly, forcefully. She couldn’t even entertain the possibility, some childlike notion of speaking it and making it true dancing across her memory. “He’s not.”  
  
Dom nodded quickly, and either he wisely decided not to say anything else or he just didn’t have time to, as they approached Nate’s front door. Dom’s hand went to his weapon at the same time that Kensi’s went to hers and she used the key Hetty had given her to open the door with one hand.  
  
The door swung open to reveal a perfectly normal, perfectly empty lounge, nothing disturbed, and nothing out of place. Kensi and Dom swept the place methodically, checking every room downstairs, and it was when they were just about to go upstairs that Kensi froze. Something had registered with her when they were sweeping the living room, something small, niggling, a whisper in the back of her mind.  
  
Slowly, she turned, stared at the coffee table.  
  
At the book lying on the coffee table.  
  
It was _Ulysses_ by James Joyce, with a familiar looking tear on the dust jacket.  
  
The world seemed to tilt around her and for an instant she felt as if she was going to faint. She shook her head in an effort to dislodge the buzzing, chase the dark spots out of her vision. She was dimly aware of Dom hissing at her, probably wondering what the hell was wrong with his partner, and she forced herself to look at him, nod, and make her way up the stairs.  
  
She let Dom take point upstairs, tried not to notice how familiar it looked, a task that only got harder as they made their way down the hall to what she knew was the bedroom.  
  
With one look at the bedroom, it got that much harder to keep her composure because sure enough it was the bedroom she’d seen in her Flashforward, the bedroom that she’d been thinking about every day since then.  
  
“Place is clear,” she told Dom, surprised at how steady her voice was.

 

“Bed’s made,” Dom noticed, gesturing to the neat pillows, the perfectly flat covers. “He didn’t come home last night.”

 

Kensi’s stomach flipped as she realised that more than likely meant that while they were drinking and singing karaoke, Nate was probably tied up in a van somewhere, scared out of his mind. She shook her head, forcing those thoughts out.  “You check downstairs...” she ordered. “I’ll take around here.”  
  
She was sure Dom was still looking at her strangely but he did as she said, and she was able to wait until he was gone before she sank down on the bed, hands to her face, wondering what the hell had just happened.

 

When she and Dom got back to Ops, Callen and Sam were already there, faces showing excitement. They oldl her that Eric had found that Nate’s phone had been turned on again, and he’d been able to trace the location to an address in Ventura. The four agents poured into one car, speeding to the location, entering in twos and sweeping the place. It was Kensi who found the door to one room ajar and through the gap was able to make out a man’s leg, a man lying still on the floor. Her heart sinking she motioned to the guys, concentrating on holding her gun steady, a task than became easier when they all entered and found that it wasn’t Nate. Instead, a Hispanic man lay there, a man who the kidnappers had obviously tried to save. Medical paraphernalia littered the room, including IV bags which could hopefully be traced.

When they got back to NCIS,  Eric and Hetty were standing by his desk, looking sombre. It turned out there was no video that could be captured from Nate’s onboard camera, but between them, Eric and Ty had managed to salvage the audio. Eric seemed strangely reluctant to press play, and when he did, Kensi knew why.

 

The voices were in Spanish, and she translated automatically. Phrases like “grab his arm”, “I can’t hold him,” the name Rafi, the sounds of a struggle all leaped out of her.

 

Then a gunshot.

 

Then silence.

 

“That’s all there is.” Eric’s voice shook, from nerves or emotion Kensi couldn’t tell. A silence more terrible than any she had ever heard filled Ops as tears filled Kensi’s eyes and she found herself obeying the instinct to run, to get as far away from her teammates as possible before she lost it.

 

The courtyard was deserted and she just about made it to the bushes at the far side before everything she’d eaten that morning – and there hadn’t been much – made a sudden reappearance. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard a voice that was very like Nate’s pointing out that it was a good job she’d missed the hood of Hetty’s car, and she wanted to laugh but couldn’t quite manage it.

 

She heard the door open behind her and when she looked around she expected to see Nate there. After all, he was usually the one who was on hand when things looked like they were getting to an agent. With a pang, she realised that it couldn’t be Nate, but it was the next best thing – Hetty.

 

She knew the guys would raise their eyebrows in disbelief if she ever said that to them but since she’d started at NCIS, Hetty had taken her under her wing, doing her best to give Kensi advice, on one memorable occasion even attempting to save her from being found out on a walk of shame. Whatever Hetty had to say, whatever pearls of wisdom she was going to share, Kensi was more than willing to hear them.

 

“I would ask if you’re all right,” Hetty began, “But that seems to be a rather redundant question today.”

 

Kensi shook her head, looking up at the sky in an effort to keep the tears at bay. “I should have picked him up last night... that’s what we always did, any time we all went out. But I told Dom I’d pick him up, because otherwise he wasn’t going to go, and I told Nate that I’d see him there...”

 

“Guilt is a strong motivator,” Hetty tells her. “But it can cloud our judgement.”

 

It sounded like Hetty knew what she was talking about, and a name and face flashed through Kensi’s memory. “Agent Sullivan.” She’d been a rookie herself when he’d been killed, hadn’t really known the man, but she knew the effect that it had had on Hetty.

 

“I can’t tell you how many times I second guessed myself after that,” Hetty told her. “But no matter how many times I did, I still came up with the same conclusion... that I did the only thing that I could do.”

 

Kensi took a long deep breath, let it out slowly. “I try to be strong,” she whispered. “But sometimes it’s hard.”

 

“I know.” Hetty reached out to take Kensi’s hand in hers. “But don’t for a moment think that they could do it without us.” A pat of the hand, then the all business. “Let’s find Nate.”

 

It was easier than Kensi would have believed possible to nod, to stride back into the bullpen, all business, to look at the screen that Eric was lamenting was all in Spanish and to begin to translate it. It turned out their dead kidnapper was a Colombian named Frederico Gomez, and from there, it was an easy matter to find out that two of his known associates were the Taro brothers, Jose and Rafael – the Rafi of the audio. From there, momentum was in their favour and the rest of the day passed in a blur. Finding that the Taros had a sister, Claudia, who was a nurse. Dom finding that the IV bags matched a shipment delivered to the hospital where she worked in Valencia. Going to the hospital, recognising Claudia in the parking lot. Sam and Callen convincing her to make a deal, Kensi pretending to be her at the switch. The brothers both being killed, with Rafael making them promise that Claudia wouldn’t be prosecuted. In return, being told that Nate had been left in a van in San Bernardino.

 

When they got to the van, they found it empty.

 

Too late was all Kensi could think. Too late, too late.

 

She thought about Flashforward Day, about Al Gough and how he’d changed the future and all she could think was that maybe her future had just changed too.

 

>*<*>*<

 

Heart shaped balloons were everywhere she went, cards and Cupids seemingly in every store window that she walked past and the mere sight of them was enough to put Kensi’s teeth on edge. Not that she’d ever been a fan of Valentine’s Day; as a woman who prided herself on being the best first date in Los Angeles but the worst second, it was a very long time since she’d been with someone on Valentine’s.

 

It was six years ago, with Jack.

 

For a while, after October 6th, she’d thought that maybe, just maybe, things might be different this year, that PancakeGuy would have made an appearance, that her future would have begun to happen. Worse had been finding out that PancakeGuy had made an appearance, had been there all along and she’d never even noticed, never even known.

 

So to say she wasn’t in the best of moods on Valentine’s Day was to state the obvious, and finding herself in the office late, finishing off paperwork, was doing nothing to improve matters. The evening did take a sudden turn up for the books when Dom, in a similar state paperwork-wise to her, arrived at her desk with a cup of coffee made just the way she liked it.

 

“Ah, I have trained you well, partner,” she quipped, throwing down her pen and leaning back on her chair.

 

Dom shrugged, rolling his chair over beside her desk and copying her posture. “I figured we needed a break,” he told her, looking carefully over his shoulder towards Hetty’s desk. That told Kensi all she needed to know and a wide smile broke across her face.

 

“Hetty’s gone home, hasn’t she?”

 

“Oh yeah.” Dom’s response was quick and heartfelt. “And don’t give me any of that senior agent crap about getting the job done... you can’t tell me this was your first choice of how to spend Valentine’s Day.”

 

Kensi took a sip of coffee, the better to hide her reaction to his casual words. “I’m not really big on Valentine’s,” was all she said.

 

Dom raised his cup in response, as if making a toast. She clinked hers against his as he spoke. “Me neither.” Then a tilt of the head downwards, a purse of the lips. “At least not this year.”

 

There was only one reason for a look like that. “What’s her name?”

 

Dom looked sheepish, but he did answer. “Emily. College sweetheart.” He took a sip of his coffee before continuing. “We were together for nearly three years... I thought she was the one, you know?” Kensi nodded, because she did, all too well. “Then when I wanted to join NCIS... she told me that she didn’t want to live that life... that she didn’t want to be waiting by a phone wondering when that call was going to come. She didn’t think she could handle it.”

 

“So you ended it? Or she did?”

 

“It was mutual. More or less. She didn’t want me not to follow my dreams... and I got to wondering if the fact that she didn’t share them meant she wasn’t the one after all.” He grimaced ruefully. “Of course, that doesn’t help tonight, because I keep thinking that last year, we were together.”

 

“And now you’re stuck with me.” Kensi’s joke had the desired effect of making Dom chuckle.

 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he promised. “It’s just rough, you know? Memories. And the Flashforwards... or the lack thereof...” He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head. “I mean, I know how things are going.... I might not get another chance to make it right. And I’m kinda wondering if I should. You know?”

 

Kensi nodded. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I know.”

 

There was a long silence and then Dom literally shook himself, sat upright in his chair. “OK, enough about me.” He lifted one eyebrow, almost in challenge. “Should I be asking his name?” he wondered. At her quizzical look, he elaborated. “The guy you were with last Valentine’s Day.”

Kensi thought back a year and when she did, she laughed. “Actually, last year...” she said, her voice trailing off as memories overtook her. “Last year, I was with Nate.”

“Nate?” Dom’s eyes opened wide and Kensi held her hands up, shaking her head.

“Not like that. Nothing like that.” One look at Dom told her that he wasn’t going to let this go so she took a deep breath and let the memories come. “We’d just finished a case... I’d been undercover for a while and you know what the debriefing process is like on those. And I hate it. I mean really, really hate it. And Nate figured out a long time ago that the best way to get me to talk is to forget that it’s this official thing and just talk to me.”

“Like this?” Dom waved his coffee cup in between the two of them and Kensi nodded enthusiastically, pleased that he understood. That particular habit had been the subject of much good-natured teasing from G and Callen.

“Exactly. So we ended up in this diner that we’d gone to a ton of times before, it’s got the jukebox in the corner and the red vinyl seats and burgers to die for... anyway, we hadn’t even realised what date it was until we got there and saw red roses and hearts and crap all over the place...” She grinned, remembering the look on Nate’s face, how he’d turned as red as the heart-shaped balloon that almost hit him on the head. “We almost left but then we figured that everywhere else would be the same, and did I mention how good the burgers there are? So we stayed, and we talked... about the case, not about the case... we never stopped talking all night. They had to ask us to leave.” Struck anew at just how much she missed Nate, she stopped talking – she had to, because tears had sneaked up her throat and were threatening to choke her.

There was a long moment of silence before Dom spoke. “You know, when I first saw you and Nate, I thought you were a couple.”

Kensi’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Dom’s cheeks grew dark with embarrassment but he kept on talking. “It was my first day here, and the two of you walked in together with identical takeout coffees... you were laughing and smiling... you just looked like you had something. And I’d met Nate, you know, when I interviewed for here... and I thought, wow, the shrink’s really punching above his weight.” She knew Dom well enough by now to know that he was playing that for laughs and it worked because the next thing she knew she was laughing and crying all at once. For once though, she didn’t feel embarrassed about crying in front of one of her teammates.

Shaking her head, she wiped her eyes. “No, nothing like that. We were never like that.” When she met Dom’s eyes though, she saw something there she couldn’t recognise. “What?”

“I don’t know... I always thought the doc had a thing for you.” Kensi’s cheeks grew hot as Dom continued, “I mean, you ever see him standing there, up on his balcony, looking down on us all, keeping an eye on us?” Kensi’s eyes were drawn to the exact spot that Dom was talking about and for a moment she could see Nate there, just as Dom had described him. Dom saw where she was looking and his smile only grew wider. “You never noticed that the spot he chose gave him the best view of your desk?”

Kensi looked from Dom to the spot where Nate had so often stood and couldn’t deny that Dom was right. “No,” she whispered. “I never noticed that.”

>*<*>*<

 

She placed her precious possessions in the space Hetty left for her, trying not to notice the slight ache that twinged as she did so. Bulletproof vest or not, fake shooting or not, the damned impact still stung. She slid the box carefully onto the shelf, stopping when it was halfway on, then pulling it back out and placing it on the floor. Carefully she sorted through the contents, past the box that housed Jack’s engagement ring, the box with her dad’s medal, the set of jelly bracelets, all the memories that she never wanted to forget, until she found it.

Right at the bottom of the box, a tiny stuffed bear. No bigger than the length of her hand, no fancy stitching on it, no messages to say who it was from.

 

But when her apartment building had been broken into, it was one of the first things that had gone into the box.

 

She’d got it after another undercover case, after another informal debrief with Nate. That time, it had been hotdogs on the Santa Monica pier and afterwards a wander through the stalls and vendors there. As they walked past a shooting gallery that hadn’t been doing much business, the stall owner had shouted out to Nate, something about winning a prize for his lady, which had Nate looking down at Kensi, one eyebrow raised.

 

“What do you think he’d say if we told him you were more likely to win the big prize than me?”

 

It was true but she didn’t care about that then, something about the carefree atmosphere surrounding them making her tilt her head in what she hoped was unmistakable challenge. “You mean you’re not going to try to win me something?” She batted her eyelashes theatrically. “You’re breaking my heart, Nate.”

 

His jaw dropped ever so slightly as he looked at her, to the stallholder, then back to her again. “Fine,” was all he said, and he was at the booth in a couple of strides, and by the time she was beside him telling him that he didn’t have to do any such thing, he’d already handed over his money, had a gun in his hand.

 

Which, she noted with some surprise, he looked pretty comfortable holding.

 

The next thing she knew, he’d reeled off three perfect shots in a row, just enough to win the tiny teddy bear that she was now holding in her hands. And he’d done it with such proficiency that she was in no doubt he could have gone on to win one of the even bigger prizes.

 

So it was with amazed laughter that she greeted him when he presented her the bear with a courtly bow as exaggerated as her eyelash batting had been minutes before. “For you, my lady,” he said, and she took the bear in the spirit it was given, clasping it to her chest and mock swooning.

 

Laughing, they continued their walk but her curiosity wouldn’t be denied. “So, since when can you shoot like that?” she asked.

 Nate shrugged his shoulders. “Since always,” he replied simply. “I think the guys just assume I can’t, because I’m a psychologist and I don’t carry a weapon... and I let them think that, because I figure one day they’re going to have that same surprised look on their faces that you have   right now and that’s going to be sweet...” 

He said it with such relish and conviction that she had no problem picturing the looks that would be on Sam and G’s faces and she only hoped she would be there to see it when the day occurred. “You’re full of secrets,” she told him that night, and only now was she appreciating the appropriateness of that phrase.

 

Just as only now was she fully appreciating his answer; how his eyes met hers, all sense of levity suddenly gone. “You have no idea,” he told her.

 

At the time, she’d thought he’d been joking.

 

Now she knew better, knew the biggest secret of all, the one that he’d been hiding from her for who knew how long.

 

Carefully, she tucked the small bear under her arm, sealed up the box and put it on the shelf. The rest of the possessions could go into storage, but the bear was one thing she wanted to keep in her sight.

 

>*<*>*<

 

When her cell phone rings in the middle of the night, Kensi, unlike many agents she knows, does not leap up instantly awake to answer it. It usually takes at least three rings for the noise to permeate her slumber and thankfully anyone who is likely to be calling her at that hour is well aware of that fact. They are also well aware of the fact that only the simplest of simple sentences should be used when talking to her, and Eric was evidently happy to oblige because tonight the message was brief and to the point. "We’ve got something. How fast can you be in here?" Kensi was out of bed and pulling clothes on in seconds.

 

When she got there, everyone else had already arrived and Hetty wasted no time in telling them that a video had been posted an hour ago on a known Jihadist website. The image that appeared on the screen shocked her – Nate, gaunt and pale, one eye grotesquely swollen, tied to  a chair with a knife at his throat. Sam translated the words for them, the gist of which Kensi realised was that they wanted their leader, Ala-A-Din released within twenty four hours – otherwise, they would kill Nate.

 

Eric was able to find that the video had been uploaded in Morocco, and Callen began barking orders, Sam ready to fly to the Middle East in the next few minutes. Hetty was straight on the phones – three at a time, with the phrase “flaccid bureaucratic eunuchs” entering NCIS legend the moment she uttered it. She sent Sam and Callen to meat with a friend of hers, who was able to tell them that Ala-A-Din was rumoured to have been captured by one of their own agencies. Meanwhile, Kensi spent her time in Ops with Dom, running images and data as much as they could find.

 

The situation took a turn for the even more personal when Sam’s friend Moe – a Sudanese teenager that he had helped get into the USA - appeared on the screen with one of the terrorists. That led them to the Ethiopian Youth Organisation, where they had previously found Mo to be exposed to Jihadists, to Kensi diving fully clothed into a swimming pool to rescue a laptop that had been thrown in there by a suspect.

 

That, and the search through the office of the Youth Centre, led to Kalil Abramson, a real estate developer who had donated money to the centre. He was the one who had financed the training of the boys from the Youth Centre, who had bought them tickets to Chad, who had paid the Colombians to kidnap Nate. He lead them to the Palace Theatre, a building he’d bought two years previously, and they followed him in quietly, careful not to attract any attention.

 

They were startled by gunfire from above, headed in that direction as Eric said on their earpieces that he would try to find a camera. While he was trying to access them, Kensi made a startling, sickening discovery – the room where they were holding Nate, the room where they shot the video. The tripod was on its side on the floor, the camera cast to the side, as if there had been a struggle and Kensi's hands shook as she radioed the information to the others. All this time she thought to herself, all this time looking for him, Sam ready to go halfway around the world at a moment’s notice. All that pain all that effort, and Nate had never even left LA.

 

“I’ve got Nate... he’s on the roof. Nate’s on the roof.” Eric’s voice, disbelieving, cut through her shock, as did Sam’s voice saying that Moe was there, that they were going to the roof. Kensi began making her way upwards, knowing that all the others were doing the same, hoping against hope that they would be there in time to save Nate, to save the rest of the team.

 

Over the sound of gunfire, she could just about make out Sam’s voice, saying that someone had been hit and with her heart in her mouth but her hands and aim steady, she made her way to the roof, making sure that all was clear. She was on a stairwell, above the others, could only make out Sam and Callen standing over a man lying on the ground. For a moment she was sure they were too late, that destiny had been thwarted, that Nate was dead. Then something miraculous happened - a tall figure walked towards them, someone who had evidently been pushed to the wall during the fire fight. A figure she'd know anywhere, had been so afraid she'd never see again.

 

Nate. Which meant...

 

As soon as the thought hit her, Sam moved, allowing her to see the face of the man lying o the ground. Dom. The relief that had filled her seconds earlier fled, its place taken by a pain all the worse for the joy that had preceded it. Tears filled her eyes and she let out a loud sob as she recalled the look on her partner's face all those months ago, the sound of his voice when he said, "I didn't see anything."

 

>*<*>*<

 

The hospital was eerily quiet as Kensi crept along the corridors, doing her best to be invisible. When she reached Nate's room, she pushed the door open as quietly as possible - she didn't want to wake him if he was asleep. She just wanted to see him, see for herself that he was all right. She was honest enough to admit, to herself if to no-one else, that his being awake would be better, and fortune was smiling on her that night because when she peeked inside, Nate's head turned instantly. He looked, she thought, even more terrible than he had on the video  - gaunt, hollow cheeked and hollow eyed, his beard longer than she'd ever seen it- but when he saw her, he smiled and she could breathe for the first time in months. "Can I-?" she began and he interrupted her, voice hoarse from lack of use.

 

"Get in here" was all she needed to hear to slip through the crack, close the door carefully behind her. There was a chair beside the bed, but she ignored it, sitting up on the bed beside him, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to take his hand in hers, squeeze it tightly. Nate had no objections, not if the way he squeezed hers back was anything to go by.

She had a million questions for him, from his capture and captivity to how he was feeling now but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was, "Man, it's good to see you!" There was a breathless little laugh at the end of that utterance and she couldn't tell if it was the sentiment or the way she said it that made Nate smile but she knew she liked it when he squeezed her hand again.

 

 "The feeling is more than mutual," he told her. "How are the guys doing?"

 

Shaking her head, Kensi fought back a smile. Typical Nate, she thought. After all he's been through, he's still more worried about everyone else. "Sam's in the gym," she told him. "Lifting weights, hitting the punch bag. Callen's with him, said he'd need a spotter for the weights. Eric's gaming online. And when I left, Hetty was about to call Dom's family." Tears stung her eyes as she said her partner's name and she swallowed hard to keep them back.

 

Nate didn't miss it though, lowering his voice to say, "He was a good guy."

 

 Kensi nodded. "And a good agent," she said. "Sam was so proud of him...about how he was improving...and Eric came up with this thing, he called it the Hulk Scale..."

 

Nate's brow furrowed, and then cleared as it clicked. "To see how green he still was?"

 

A giggle escaped Kensi’s lips as she nodded again. "Originally it was the Kermit Scale, but Dom protested. That automatically brought him down a notch."

 

Nate laughed at that, really laughed, his eyes lighting up. Then the light dimmed, his smile faded. "I owe him my life," he said. "If I hadn't been stupid enough to get myself kidnapped..."

 

"Nate, this isn't your fault..."

 

"Isn’t it?" There was a frustration, an urgency in Nate's voice that Kensi had never heard there before. "How many times have I heard Sam say it to Dom, to you? Vary your routine, something different every day because you don't know who's watching. If I'd done that, maybe Dom would still be here."

 

Kensi didn't need to think about her reply. "And maybe you wouldn't be- did you ever think about that?" Nate looked down, looked away from her, which told her he had. "Dom chose to be an agent. Chose to protect you, to leap in front of a bullet for Sam. You didn't choose what happened to you. And ok, maybe things could have worked out different ...better.  But you're here... And even though I'm gonna miss Dom..." She had to swallow a sob. "I'm glad you're ok."

 

Nate squeezed her hand and when she looked down, her throat constricted at the sight of the welts on his wrists, where cuffs had obviously cut into the skin. “Look at me,” she laughed, shaking her head. “Here I am, crying all over you... you’re the one in hospital and you’re still listening to all my problems...”

 

One shoulder rose and fell in a shrug as a half-smile crossed Nate’s lips. “That’s my job,” he told her. “Which, believe it or not, I’ve missed.” Then, quieter, “I missed you.”

 

He was looking in her eyes then, as she was looking into his, and there was something in his eyes that she’d never seen before. It sent chills down her spine, made her suck in her breath sharply, and she was about to open her mouth to tell him that she knew all about his Flashforward when suddenly the door to his room opened and a nurse came in. When she saw Kensi, her mouth drew up in a frown.

 

“What are you doing here? It’s after visiting hours, and this man needs his rest,” she hissed. Something about her demeanour reminded Kensi of Hetty on a really bad day and when a look of amusement appeared on Nate’s face, she fancied he thought the same thing.

 

“Sorry,” was all she could find to say, hopping off the bed and squeezing Nate’s hand. “I’ll go.” She sounded as reluctant to do it as she felt, and Nate must have felt the same because his smile was distinctly rueful as he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

Kensi made her way home and fell into bed, asleep almost instantly.

 

For the first time in two months, she slept soundly.

>*<*>*<  
  
The Vail home was crowded with mourners, but it seemed like everywhere Kensi looked, all she could see were pictures of Dom. Baby pictures, school portraits, graduation shots, all with that same beaming smile. Between that and the amount of people in the room, she was starting to feel somewhat claustrophobic when she heard Nate’s voice behind her.  
  
“You want to get out of here? Take a walk?”  
  
Turning to face him, she was struck anew by his demeanour, the pale face, the red-rimmed, dark-shadowed eyes. He looked haunted and frail, which she supposed was to be expected - Kensi had heard Eric saying that it had taken Hetty giving three doctors a thorough dressing down to allow Nate to be discharged from hospital in order to attend the service. She hadn’t seen him since the night they’d found him, when Nurse Ratched had all but kicked her out of his room and if anything she thought he looked even worse now.  
  
Swallowing hard, she nodded and side by side they made their way to the front door. If anyone from NCIS noticed them leaving, they didn’t follow and for that, Kensi was entirely grateful. There was a conversation she and Nate needed to have, and they couldn’t do it with an audience.  
  
They walked in silence for a couple of blocks, Nate yanking off his tie and pushing it in a ball into his jacket pocket before taking off the jacket and folding it over his arm. Kensi wanted to say something, anything, to break the silence, but for one of the few times in her life, she literally could not talk. Thankfully Nate took the initiative, perhaps used to it from years of psychology.  
  
“Thank you for not asking how I’m doing,” he said. “I’m starting to think I look as bad as I feel.”  
  
There was a faint hint of humour in his eyes which Kensi found herself responding to. “Actually, you look worse,” she told him and she was only half joking. “I didn’t think even Hetty would be able to break you out of hospital.”  
  
At that, he chuckled. “That’s my Kensi,” he said. “Always honest.”  
  
Maybe it was the word honest. Maybe it was the “my Kensi” that loosened her tongue. Maybe it was just that the words had been bottled up inside her for too long. Maybe it was the fact that they were at the funeral of a friend and there was nothing like that to remind you that life was short and not a dress rehearsal. For whatever reason, Kensi stopped walking and the words, “Nate? I know,” came out.  
  
Nate stopped walking too, frowned. “Know what?” he asked, but there was a caginess to his voice that she didn’t miss.  
  
“That you lied. About your Flashforward. You weren’t at the bar with everyone else. You were at your place. Making pancakes. For me.”  
  
Nate let out a long, deep breath, and he looked suddenly as if he were ten pounds lighter. “How?”  
  
“Dom and I...” For a moment she stumbled over her words, talking about her partner. “When you went missing...we went to your place and searched. There was a book on the coffee table... Ulysses... and there was a tear on the cover. I’d seen that book before. On the bedside table in my Flashforward.”  
  
There was a genuine if tired smile on Nate’s lips. “I’ve been trying to read that damn book for months.”  
  
“Dom and I swept the place...and by the time I got halfway up, I knew I’d seen it before. I knew what your bedroom would look like before I even opened the door...” A deep breath, then a rush of words. “Nate, why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
Nate shook his head. “We were in Ops. In front of everyone. Who had all seen the same thing... and I’d seen myself, standing in my kitchen, cooking pancakes in boxers and a t-shirt, and I’d heard your voice as you came down the stairs...  What would they have said...what would you have said if I’d told the truth?”  
  
“I would have freaked out.” Again, honesty. It was easier than she would have believed possible.  
  
“So I had no choice. I lied. Even though...” Now it was Nate’s turn to take a deep breath. “Even though what I’d seen was what I’d wanted for longer than I care to remember.”  
  
Kensi’s voice was a barely recognisable croak when she asked, “How long?”  
  
“Since the first time I saw you,” Nate chuckled, looking into the distance. “I ignored it, tried to forget it...  but you’re not that easy to forget, Kensi. And it’s not like I could say anything... I mean, do you know how many rules that would break? It was easier to just... anyway, then I saw what I saw, and heard you say yours... and I thought that maybe...” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I thought.” He looked down at her then, looking into her eyes. “Or what you’re thinking now.”  
  
“Nate...” The simple act of saying his name made her voice break, had her eyes filling with tears. “There have been so many times over the last few months that stuff happened and I wanted to talk to someone... I wanted to talk to you. And today, looking at that coffin, knowing that it could be you in there... that I was so close to missing being able to tell you things for the rest of my life... Nate, I can’t lose you. I just can’t.”  
  
Suddenly, his arms were around her, holding her tightly, his chin pressed against the top of her head. Her arms went around his waist, holding him as if she never wanted to let him go, nor did she. “You won’t,” he told her, his voice gruff and she had never wanted to believe anything more in her life.  
  
Pulling back, she raised herself up on her tiptoes and acting entirely on the spur of the moment, pressed her lips against his. There was the faintest moment of hesitation and then he was kissing her back, and it was as if the world around them simply stopped.  
  
She had no idea how long it was before they drew apart and she was gratified to see that Nate looked as dazed as she felt. “So,” he finally said, “How would you feel about me taking you to dinner? Like a date dinner.”  
  
Kensi smiled her first genuine smile in days if not months. “I’d love to.”  
  
>*<*>*<  
  
It is April 29th, Flashforward day, the day the world catches up to the future that it saw almost six months ago. The newspapers and television have been full of nothing else for days, with the Mosaic website almost crashing several times as people logged on searching for more links to their future. All over the planet, people are planning Flashforward parties, some embracing their future, more wanting to run away from it.  
  
For the first time in her life, however, Kensi doesn't want to run anywhere.  
  
It is the end of the day and she is pulling on her jacket, enjoying a little end of day banter with Sam when Callen comes up to them. Sam gets a grin on his face as he sees his partner approaching, leans back in his chair. "There's my duet partner," he says. "Ready to sing some karaoke?"  
  
Callen rolls his eyes. "Hardly," he says dryly. "We're not really going through with this, are we?"  
  
"It's destiny, man" replies Sam. "Can't fight that."  
  
Callen arches an eyebrow. "When it comes to singing karaoke, I really think we can."  
  
"Actually, we can't." Eric comes up behind them, looking as enthused as Callen is about the prospect of an evening of karaoke. "Hetty," is his one word response to their questioning looks and it's all it takes to have them looking resigned.  
  
"How about you, Kensi?" asks Callen. "You coming?"  
  
Kensi smiles, shaking her head as she stands and grabs her bag. "Sorry guys," she says, knowing she sounds anything but. "I've got my own destiny to meet."  
  
Sam looks delighted. "PancakeGuy finally showed up then?" he asks and Kensi can't stop herself from blushing. That only makes Sam laugh out loud and Kensi decides that discretion is the better part of valour and heads for the door, throwing a quick goodnight over her shoulder.  
  
She's surprised when she hears Callen calling her name, turns around to see him following her. "Sam's right?" he asks. "You met PancakeGuy?"  
  
In spite of his phrasing, Callen is completely serious, so Kensi doesn't blush, does bluster, just simply nods. She half expects Callen to ask for details but that never was Callen's style. All he asks is, "You happy?" Kensi's so taken aback that all she can do is nod again, and Callen smiles, jerks his chin towards the door. "Get out of here," he tells her and she doesn't have to be told twice.  
  
>*<*>*<  
  
"It's almost time."  
  
Kensi is lying in Nate's arms, in Nate's bed, her head on his shoulder, his chin resting on top of her head as his fingers trace gentle patterns along her arms and back. From her position, she can see his alarm clock, the luminous red numbers growing ever closer to zero hour. "Hmm?" Nate asks, sounding as if he's a million miles away. Kensi pulls back slightly, looks up quizzically at him.  
  
"Where are you?" she wonders, when she sees that his eyes are as far away as his voice.  
  
Nate looks at her then, really looks at her, and his smile is warm, genuine, there. "Exactly where I want to be," he says, and while it could easily sound like a line, the look on her face is so sincere that Kensi can only close the gap between them and press her lips to his. Nate responds enthusiastically and she's disappointed when he pulls away, to the point that she lets out an involuntary groan. The noise makes his smile widen as he reaches up to touch her cheek. "There were so many times," he says, "so many times that I thought about this day... Wished for it. The thought of being here, with you, on Flashforward Day, it's what kept me going...made me think that I was going to get out of there."  
  
Kensi's fingers thread through his hair. "You know we never would have stopped looking for you, right?"  
  
"I know," he says, kissing her quickly. "But the Flashforward...it gave me hope that you'd find me."  
  
She can't argue with that, because the truth is that it had sustained her too, right from the time that she and Dom had searched this place and she'd recognised that damn book, which sure enough is currently sitting on the nightstand beside the alarm clock. Seems like Sam isn’t the only one who’s not interested in fighting destiny.  
  
Part of Kensi isn’t either. The other part of her doesn’t give a damn about pancakes, just wants to stay right here, in this room, in this bed, with this man. “So,” she asks, hoping he feels the same way, “What do we do now?”  
  
She’s not sure if she’s talking short or long term but when Nate grins, it doesn’t seem to matter.  "You are going to take a shower," he orders. "And I'm going to make pancakes."  
  
From the feel of his body against hers, she knows that there’s something else he’d like to be doing too, and she presses herself against him teasingly. “Seriously?"  
  
"It's destiny, Kensi," he tells her, looking into her eyes ever so seriously, and she suddenly realises that Sam might know a little bit more than he'd let on earlier. "Can't fight it. Besides..." A smile that can only be described as wicked spreads across his face. "We should keep our strength up...I think we're going to need it."  
  
Suddenly, not fighting destiny sounds like a very good idea.


End file.
